Alex Jennings and Maggie Smith Film in The Lady In The Van, one of Everyman’s top films of 2015.
Photograph: Allstar/Bbc Films

Everyman Media, the upmarket cinema chain, said business was strong as moviegoers flocked to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Spectre and The Theory of Everything.

The company, whose cinemas include the Screen on the Green in Islington, north London, said it expected earnings before interest, tax and other items to rise to about £1.5m from £1.3m a year earlier.

After buying the Hampstead Everyman in 2000, the company has expanded to cater for people willing to pay up to £16.50 to watch a mixture of mainstream and arty films in plush surroundings. Its venues serve wine and have large seats and sofas with side tables and they regularly show satellite screenings from the National Theatre.

Crispin Lilly, Everyman’s chief executive, said Spectre, the James Bond film released in October, fired enthusiasm among cinemagoers that he expected to carry on this year with the release of Spotlight, about the Boston Globe’s child sex abuse investigation, and The Revenant, a survival drama set in the 1820s starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

“We’re not an art house. We did very well with Star Wars and Spectre and those quality blockbusters are big for us as well,” Lilly said. “With Bond, you get an awful lot of people who only go to the cinema every three years. We discussed it in September and we said we are going to get a lot of people in for Bond and we have to get them to pick up on the Everyman experience.”

Alongside mainstream crowd-pullers, Everyman’s top 10 films of last year included The Lady in the Van, written by Alan Bennett, and Amy, a documentary about Amy Winehouse.

More than half of Everyman’s 16 cinemas are in London but it plans to open in Bristol, Harrogate, Cirencester and other sites as it spreads its network to other towns and cities with affluent populations.

Lilly said that following the success of Everyman’s cinema in Leeds, which opened in 2013, he would like to open in Scotland and places across the UK where there is demand for a boutique cinema.

Lilly said Everyman was still a zero-hours employer because business at cinemas fluctuates according to what film is out at the time. But he said the group was experimenting with guaranteed monthly hours at its Birmingham branch.